


wishful thinking

by hyperphonic



Series: in bloom [3]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Drunken Shenanigans, Multi, ben 'weak pullout game' solo, but it would def add depth, you don't neeeeeeed to read copacetic for these to make sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-04-04 00:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14007957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperphonic/pseuds/hyperphonic
Summary: vignettes written to fill prompts within the in bloom universe. expect to see: sad, smutty, and a lot of smoking





	1. froot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: What about Rey and Ben from your copesthetic verse celebrating St. Patrick’s Day? Cause ya know, today is St. Patrick’s Day ! Green Beer!
> 
> in keeping with copacetic, [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZzcY7ASQno) is the song the chapter is titled for.

Ben is fucking _trashed,_ more than she’s ever seen him before. The kind of trashed that has him leaning on Rey’s shoulder and pressing wet, sloppy kisses down the column of her throat. It’s approximately 1:15am, and if they make it to bar break, Rey thinks she’ll eat her own shoe. Jess grins, raises a glass of green beer when he slides a hand across the small of Rey’s bare back, drunk and in love. Even before the drinks had started to pour he’d been like this, crushing her back against the side of her car in Jess’s lot. She sips on her drink, smiles when he bumps his nose against her cheek, and is nearly bowled over by Rose and Finn when they enter.

 

“Hey,” the shorter girl exclaims, cheeks pink against the green of her sequined top, “glad to see Ben’s still standing!” Rey sways on her feet, knocked off balance by Ben’s weight against her side and the liquor that sits heavily in her stomach. The motion draws his eyes to her breasts, bared by the plunging neckline of her bodysuit. How he’d gotten so drunk so fast is a mystery to her, seeing as that he’d opted out of the flavored vodka Jess had passed around the living room before they’d called their cab (by the time they’d left, breath smelling of alcohol and peaches, Rey could already feel the world starting to spin a little more quickly under her feet).

 

The Cantina is packed shoulder to shoulder, sweaty in a way that only a bar on St. Patrick’s day could be. The street outside is lit up with traffic and the erratic blink of light up jewelry, Rey knocks back a shot when Rose hands it to her, and is infinitely glad that they’d wound up at a bar so close to her home. As if reading her mind, Ben’s lips brush against the shell of her ear, and Rey pauses to consider how fast they could make the two-block walk from the bar to her place. Ben’s fingers brush along the zipper of her bodysuit, hot and bold with booze. The prospect is tempting, but not nearly so much so as the closet door that beckons from the other side of the stage (she _knows_ Finn and Rose have taken advantage of it after shows before.).

 

“I want,” her boyfriend purrs, one tattooed arm moving to curl around her waist, “to get out of here.” His voice is low, makes no attempt to hide the intention behind the words, and Rey feels her whole body catch fire in response. It is March, a year since Ben had lain at her feet and rained apologies against her stomach outside this very bar, and the fact sends her heart beating double time.

 

Rey smiles, presses a kiss sharp with vodka against his lips, and downs the rest of her (green) beer before taking his hand to head towards the door.


	2. head to the ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written bc Cecilia knows my heart, and prompted: buckle the fuck up: reylo. A sick day. Someone (idiot of your choice) is a horrible patient.
> 
> titular song is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6GCcLz8vCM), and will probably make you cry (it's a favorite of mine)

Rey has spent the better part of her short, honestly ridiculous life under the impression that she’s the worst patient in the greater Hosnian area. It’s a belief that made sense, seemed perfectly rational- until Ben Solo had come crashing into her world in a cloud of cigarette smoke and heavy stares. December, and flu season with it, has taken hold of the city tightly, worked its cold into the asphalt and the spaces between Rey’s ribs when she makes the journey from the warmth of her car to the doors of Ben’s building. It’s hard with the familiar bite of winter at her fingers not to think about where she’d been this time last year, how the tile of her shower had felt against her shoulder blades (how much better she’s doing now).

 

She’s got a to-go container of chicken soup from the taco stand on G street in one hand, and her copy of Ben’s apartment key in the other when she sidles up to his door. The flat is almost more makeshift studio than home, floor littered with amps, pedals, and coils of insulated cording. Rey smiles, nudges a set of pedals aside so she can set her purse down, and crosses the hardwood to push his bedroom door open with her hip.

 

“I cannot fucking believe you,” she laughs, nearly dropping her soup at the sight of Ben Organa Solo, wrapped in every blanket under his roof and smoking a heater out the window beside his bed. Her boyfriend takes a drag and pats the mattress beside him, cheeks flushed (either with fever or sheepishness, though Rey isn’t sure which).

 

“What’s in the bag?” He rasps as he drops his head heavily onto her shoulder, snakes the arm not holding his cig out the window around her waist.

 

“Soup,” she replies, presses a kiss into his hair and tries futilely to knock the cigarette out of his hand. Ben nods and curls himself closer against her core before turning his head away to cough. He sounds terrible, worse than she’s ever heard him, and Rey wonders (not for the first time) if maybe it was time to haul his ass back to the doctor.

 

“Ben,” the man in question grunts, sags even more against her, “baby,” he responds with a kiss against her throat, “you have pneumonia, you really shouldn’t be smoking.” He just shakes his head, ashes his cig and holds her even tighter (Rey rolls her eyes and contemplates calling Leia).

 

“Don’t call my mother,” he coughs as if reading her mind, and Rey grins.

 

“I won’t, _if_ you promise to stop smoking at least until your fever breaks.” Ben stubs out his cigarette against the windowpane with a sigh, and flops backwards onto the bed.

 

“Fine,” Rey closes the window before burrowing beneath the blankets beside him, lips parted in a pretty smile when he trails his fingers down her back. Ben falls asleep within a few moments of laying down, and Rey ends up texting Leia anyways, just to make sure her son didn’t have any allergies to medications. She’s going to haul his ass to the doctor's once he wakes up, but for now she’s content to card her fingers through his hair and watch the steady rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps.


	3. coffee talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: Ben, Rey, Morning sickness that's "just a stomach bug"
> 
> titled for [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEbaT5gvrP8)

Rey’s spent a lot of time on the cool, off white tile of her bathroom floor. She’s getting good at it, honestly, learning how to settle her weight to keep her toes from going numb and close her eyes against the buzz of cheap fluorescent lights. Historically, when she finds herself in this position, it’s usually a direct result of one of two things:

 

  1. Copious amounts of booze either at the hands of Rose or Jess, or both.
  2. Ben Solo (the Winter We Don’t Talk About springs to mind).



 

She’s fairly certain that it isn’t either of the two usual's this time though as she heaves into the bowl of her toilet. It’s eight in the morning on a Wednesday, she hadn’t had a lick of alcohol the night before, and Ben’s steady breathing can be heard from her bed in the other room. Which really just leaves one option; illness. Rey presses her temple to the wall beside her, focuses on the cool paint against her skin and the sound of rain on the ceiling. She wishes she had a glass of water, or maybe that she hadn’t eaten so much Pad Thai the night before; but she can’t seem to stop barfing long enough to get a glass, and time travel wasn’t possible yet, so instead Rey settles for sprawling across the floor.

 

“How long have you been in here for, Sweetheart?” Ben murmurs when he enters the bathroom about fifteen minutes and two bouts of vomiting later. His hands are warm and gentle when he leans back against the wall to pull her into his chest, lips raining kisses down across her shoulder when she shrugs noncommittally.

 

“Something like thirty minutes, I think?” Her boyfriend nods, and presses another kiss into the crown of her head as she traces the linework on his arm with one finger.

 

Rey finds herself rushing into the bathroom the next morning, and the one after that too, each time a little more urgently than the next (and Ben always hot on her heels). He’s taken to singing little half formed songs into her hair while he holds her, voice rough with sleep where it falls across sweaty brunette locks.

 

“I swear to shit if you start bringing your twelve string in here, Benjamin Solo,” she threatens Friday morning, biting tone wholly negated by the tired hand that wipes at the corners of her mouth. Ben laughs, warm and bright in the tiny bathroom, and not for the first time Rey marvels at the fact that he’s _hers_. Sweet smelling summer air filters in through the open windows in her room, and Ben brushes a kiss against the nape of her neck before speaking.

 

“I’m not sure this is just a stomach bug, Rey.” He’s suddenly serious, dark eyes intense even as he brushes a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. Rey blinks, glances down at where their legs tangle against the tile floor, and swallows thickly. Her young adult life had been mostly devoid of female mentors, but she’d spent enough tense mornings with Rose in the bathroom through college to have an idea as to what Ben was implying. She swallows thickly, presses the heel of her hand against the headache developing behind her right eye, and nods.

 

“Maybe we should make a run to the drugstore once I’m done barfing?” Ben just replies with a brush of his lips against her nose.

 

The block and a half walk to the drugstore on D street is tense (for Rey, at least, Ben is irritatingly calm as he swings their entwined hands between them). Summer in the city is bright and warm, filled with the scent of asphalt baking in the sun, and coffee shops with their front doors thrown open; Rey loves it, maybe even more than she loves the man beside her.  

 

When they enter the cool, air conditioned climate of the store, Ben makes a beeline for the aisle marked _feminine hygiene,_ and Rey does her best to tamp down an uncharacteristically late in the day wave of nausea. Her hand must have clenched in his, or something, as Ben glances back almost instantly, eyes full of concern.

 

“You alright baby?” She nods, mouth firmly clamped shut, and continues to head towards their target. Ben insists on buying the test, even grabs a second one just in case, and holds Rey close against his side as they check out; every line of his body clearly anxious to get home to her (their? Rey isn’t really sure anymore) loft.

 

They sit on the floor of the kitchen while they wait for the results, shoulders pressed back against her oven, and arms brushing with every breath. Rey has her head pillowed on Ben’s shoulder, eyes fitfully shut as he hums another almost song, dark eyes certainly on his guitar across the room.

 

“I love you,” he pauses singing long enough to declare, one tattooed arm snaking around her waist to pull her more firmly into his side. “It’s crazy to think that two years ago I wasn’t yours.” Rey smiles, tight around the edges, and turns her head just enough to press a kiss into the skin over his collarbone. For a second, it feels almost like he’s about to continue speaking, some great tension settling into the air of her small, sunlit kitchen. But before it has a chance to come to a head the timer on her phone goes off, and they’re both rushing across the hardwood to peer anxiously at the innocuous plastic stick.

 

“Fuck,” she gasps, in the same exact breath that Ben’s face splits into the most brilliant grin before asking, “marry me?”


	4. you felt right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: “Are you fucking insane” + “I really need you”, and set betwwen chapters 8 and 9
> 
> (i'm sorry this took me nINE YEARS TO WRITE ILY)

January is its own special flavor of cold: the kind that settles into spaces between ribs and draws shoulders up towards ears with every second spent outside. _Especially_ when one is only wearing a slip of a dress and a jacket that’s really more statement piece than actual layer; which is, of course, exactly what Rey is wearing as she trudges after Rose and Jess on their trek from the Cantina to Jess’s favorite bar two blocks away. They’re only three drinks in and about an hour into their night out, and Rey is already sharp eyed and watching the bustle of Saturday night traffic around them for potential distractions (or the dark mop of hair she decidedly does _not_ want to see). The buzzing, kinetic energy in her chest hasn’t let up since she slipped into heeled boots, and Rey knows there’s only one _real_ outlet for it.

 

Jess’s bar of choice is a sprawling, two story establishment called Jabba’s; during the day, the upper bar functions as a sandwich shop with a row of pinball machines along the far wall, by night they open the lower level into a monstrous dance floor and additional bar. It’s usually entirely too crowded and sweaty for Rey’s taste, but tonight she is cold and wild at the edges (if she stops moving for too long her back still burns with Ben’s phantom stare as she had pushed her way out of the venue two months ago).

 

It’s particularly crowded tonight, to the point that when the bouncer ushers them into the upper level the thick humidity usually relegated to the dance floor below hits them full force. Leading the charge, Rey reaches a hand back for Jess (who in turn reaches back for Rose) and together the three of them slip through the crowd and up to the bar. The man who stands behind it, hip cocked while he shakes a stainless-steel tumbler with practiced ease, shoots Rey a crooked grin when she sidles up to the bar, dress gapping to reveal tanned skin as she leans against the tacky wood.

 

“What can I getcha?” He asks, smoothly ignoring about ten people who’d been at the bar far longer than her. Rey doesn’t miss it, just smiles coyly as she tilts her head and glances back at the two girls who stand behind her, grinning sharply.

 

“How about,” Rey brings a finger up to rub at the velvety liquid lip Rose had so carefully painted across her mouth, “a round of jameo.” The bartender’s eyes are fixed hotly on her lips, and his nostrils flare as he drags his gaze away to pull three shot glasses from under the bar.

 

“Want anything to back it?” Rey tosses a stray piece of hair back behind her shoulder,

 

“Nah, thanks though.” The bartender nods, and slides the nearly overflowing glasses over, hands held in front of his chest when Rey tries to pay.

 

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.” Rey steps back just enough to knock her glass against the bar top before raising it to hit against Jess and Rose’s, and winks when she knocks it back. Rose slides her shot glass across the bartop, flips her hair with almost catlike intent when she asks,

“And what, exactly is your name?” Nameless-bartender grins, ignores his patrons as he leans across the bar towards them to reply.

 

“Cory.” Green eyes bore into Rey’s when he asks, “and yours?” Rey bites her lip, considers giving him a fake name like she usually does when out, but instead steps back into the bar and smiles sweetly.

 

“Rey.”

 

They wind up staying at Jabba’s for the rest of the night, bouncing between the bar below and the wild energy of the dancefloor (which for once, Rey enjoys, though she’s preoccupied with the idea of Cory just upstairs). She and Jess dart in and out of the crowd, smiling at the men who offer them drinks and running to the bathroom with Rose to dump them out more often than not. Finn joins them with about an hour and a half to bar break, pulling Rey into a huge hug as she excuses herself upstairs to ‘go smoke’ (no one believes her).

 

As she crosses towards the smoking deck, fingers fumbling for a lighter in her too-full purse, Rey catches Cory’s eye, smiles when he glances between her and the door and gives a bright grin. In the time that it takes Rey to light her cigarette, perched on the edge of one frosty patio table (she tries not to think about the splintering wood tables outside the Cantina, and how Ben had studied the way she sat upon them) Cory joins her, two nondescript plastic glasses in hand. He doesn’t speak first, and Rey’s content to smoke in silence, watching the tide of patrons in and out of the bar. The city glitters indifferently down at her, a myriad of refracted streetlights and nearly-bar break laughter; Rey wishes it was a little less beautiful (wishes she could feel the cigarette in her fingers, and not just the mid-winter cold).

 

Cory smiles at her, white-toothed and warm in the dirty fluorescent lighting, and Rey lets her cigarette linger by her thigh just long enough for him to kiss her. His nose is cold, enough so that even she can tell; and though his lips were soft, sweet in a way she wasn’t used to, Rey pulls away before he can press any closer. His arms are caged around her hips, heedless of the cold metal that’s surely biting into his palms, and Rey just offers him a coy bat of her eyelashes as she leans into him to snag the cup at his side. She takes a drag, allows him to trail his fingers down her ribs as she returns to watching the movement of business in and out past the bouncer, and can’t help the stab of red-hot pride when a pair of familiar shoulders appear at the back of the line.

 

There’s a beat where the cold suddenly vanishes, and for the first time since November Rey not only feels her fingertips, but feels _everything:_ the press of Cory’s fingers against her thigh, how cigarette smoke curls into the tissue of her bronchus, and most of all, the heavy stare of Ben Solo from the other side of the bouncer. He’s wide eyed, frozen in place as he watches Rey raise the cigarette to her lips again, equally still while the wholly-irrelevant bartender beside her dusts a kiss against the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Rey blinks, ashes her cigarette when he breaks his stare to hand the bouncer his ID, and curls a red lipped smirk across her face when Cory asks breathlessly for her number.

 

Rose knows something has happened the second Ben ducks his head under the doorway into the lower bar. His eyes are wild, whipped into the kind of fervor she’s only used to seeing from him onstage. Beside her, Finn notes it too, setting his drink down on the sticky top of their table to wave the other man over.

 

“Who the _fuck_ is Rey with?” He snarls before he’s even drawn to stop between them, voice crackling underneath the pounding base. Rose feels the anger claw its way into her chest, hot and howling louder even than the music around them. Ben looks between her and Jess for answers, blissfully unaware of the rage that’s building towards the low ceiling. Instead of answering immediately, Rose studies the man in front of her for a few, tense seconds before finally feeling composed enough to speak.

 

“Are you fucking insane, Ben Solo?” She bites out, brows knit in utter disbelief at the hulking idiot in front of her. Ben doesn’t respond, just stands still, shoulders slumped in something that looks suspiciously like defeat as Jess sips unsympathetically on her drink and Rose pinches the bridge of her nose in a desperate bid for focus as she continues.

 

“I really need you to think about why you’ve no right to be this angry.” Jess nods, and the dancefloor continues to whip around them, uncaring of the man who stands so dangerously close to tears at its edge. Rose reaches out, one small palm curling gently into his elbow, and suddenly it’s almost like they’re back in her kitchen listening to October rain on the roof.

 

“Don’t draw this out, Ben.”


	5. mileage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "“Please tell me that we’re not stuck out here in your piece of shit car.” + First Kiss? Ehhhh??"

It’s one of those drizzly June evenings where the mist rises up from the wharf to snake around the tires of Ben’s Taurus, thick and smelling of seawater when Rey flicks the butt of her cigarette out of the window and into it. They’re sitting facing out over the water, watching in almost-silence as the rain turns the otherwise glassy harbor into an uncertainly rippling surface; Ben’s camel blue out of one window, and Rey’s red the other. It’s been a day and a half since the house show, just over thirty-six hours of lingering stares and moments of tension bordering so close to intimacy that it makes Rey’s head spin.

They’re rounding out hour forty five, seats tilted back while Ben absently scrolls through his phone in search of music, brow furrowed in concentration usually reserved for particularly difficult riffs or Rey. After a few minutes he settles on a song, sends a smoky smile her way as he stubs his cigarette out on the side of the car and leans in (almost) as if to kiss her.

“I can’t believe.” Rey teases, planting her elbow firmly against the tacky faux leather center console to meet him halfway. “That we’re stuck out here in your piece of shit car.”

Ben raises one eyebrow, and Rey cannot help but savor the smell of cigarette smoke on his fingers when he takes her chin in his thumb and forefinger to tilt it up. The drizzle outside escalates to rain in earnest, pinging a steady staccato against the roof of the little car as her boyfriend leans in to press his lips against hers. It’s a soft kiss, warm in a way their last one hadn’t been (like autumn sun spilling across sheets, and the feeling of his forehead pressed against her stomach outside the Cantina), and Rey’s barely got time to wind her fingers through his hair before Ben pulls away.

“Not too bad for a first kiss.” He rumbles, unbuckling to press even closer to her within the tiny cabin, and not for the first time, she’s struck by how he’s entirely too large for the little car he drives. Rey rolls her eyes and places a hand on his chest (tries, and fails not to let her mind wander to the wild heartbeat that hammers beneath thin fabric).

“Ben.” His eyes light up like cigarettes, nearly too bright to look at against the rapidly dimming grey sky. “That’s not even  _ barely  _ our first kiss.” First Order’s lead guitarist leans in to ghost his lips over the pulse in her throat and pins Rey with a stare so hot she feels her chest flush involuntarily.

“Maybe not.” Adrenaline hits her bloodstream with all the force of a hurricane when Ben presses an open mouthed kiss into the hollow between her collarbones, and Rey swallows thickly as he continues. “But it  _ is  _ our first kiss as a couple.”

Rey smiles, eyes only a  _ little _ watery at the edges, and blinks mistily up at the dirty ceiling as Ben sets about pressing his love into every bare inch of her skin.

 


	6. it's strange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "Hey so Remember how I told u I popped something out of place in my knee sneezing and also possibly a rib? That’s it. That’s your prompt. Reylo and stupid fucking injuries."
> 
> alternately: a different kind of elevator scene
> 
> hey also: miss the thrill of sobbing into your hands over _copacetic_? oh boy have i got [news for you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14283693/chapters/32948592).

Rey’s a terrible patient. A fact that, coming from a long line of terrible patients, Ben thinks he can speak on with no small amount of authority. So he does, grumbling as he tucks Rey’s Vans under one arm.

 

“Well at least _I’m_ not the one who wouldn’t stop chain smoking even for _pneumonia_.” She snipes at him, even as Ben carries her bridal style down the hallway of his apartment building. It’s dead silent save for the buzz of fluorescent lighting above them, a fact he’s glad for when he presses the down button, using the time spent waiting for the elevator to brush a kiss against Rey’s temple.

 

“ _Ben._ ” Rey prods him in the neck (follows it with an open mouthed kiss), and gestures to the dented metal door as it waits, open.

 

“I know, sweetheart.” He rumbles, glancing down at his belt loop to make sure his car keys were, in fact, present and accounted for. Rey reaches down, one arm looped around his neck for support, and presses the ground floor button with a huff.

 

“I’m perfectly capable of walking.” Ben raises both eyebrows, glancing from Rey’s scowl to the obviously fractured foot held gingerly near his shoulder. They both know it’s a lie, and that if it weren’t for the sheer mass Ben has on her, Rey would _absolutely_ be on the move right now. She’s the only person he’s ever met more stubborn than himself, hair mussed in a bun that flashes her undercut and fingers lost in the sleeves of the hoodie she’d pilfered from him; yanked straight from bed in a (futile) attempt to avoid resistance against a trip to the doctor.

 

Rey correctly interprets his silence as disagreement and huffs out a breath against his throat as the elevator pings past each level of their descent. Leaning back against the grimy wall, Ben dusts a crown of warm kisses into her hair, an act rewarded with a soft noise of contentment from the wild, incorrigible girl in his arms.

 

It’s not until she’s testing the limits of her seatbelt to press a temple against his shoulder that Rey speaks again.

 

“Thank you.” Ben puts the car into first and turns his head to briefly lay a cheek against her hair, reluctant to pull away even enough to flick his windshield wipers on against the steady rain. Her voice hangs in the car, ringing in his ears like feedback before a set or the catch of her breath when he kisses her throat.

 

“You don’t have to thank me for anything, sweetheart.” Ben replies, working a hand into the hair at the nape of her neck once they’re clipping along in fourth gear. He’d pull the stars down from the sky for her, and they both know it. It’s early September, and the rain curtains around their car when Ben rolls to stop at a red light, blurring out everything save for the swoop of Rey’s nose where it brushes against his arm (Ben loves her so much it must be damning).


	7. gummy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for a prompt that was DEFINITELY not from cecelia: "more! drunk! rey!"

If Ben had thought that trying to keep a handle on a sober Rey was difficult, he doesn’t really know what the _hell_ he had expected from her drunk. Drunk Rey, as it turns out, is a force of fucking nature; tearing through the Cantina like a pint sized tornado stuffed into an unfairly short leather jumper and a pair of glittery cat ears. Order 66 wails onstage, lead singer wearing an executioner’s hood in honor of the holiday as he leads the band through an (only okay) series of riffs.

 

“What the hell is your costume supposed to be?” Jess asks when she stomps up to him, Rose and Rey in tow, all three of them balancing sugar rimmed shots in their sticky hands. Ben looks from his nondescript band hoodie, to the three glittering women in front of him and scowls for a second.

 

“Clinical depression.” He answers right as the lead guitarist hits a sour note. Rey and Rose blink up at him, and there’s a second of stillness before all three of them are knocking back the shots.

 

“Wow.” Rose comments as she grabs empty glasses from her friends before passing them off to some poor, overwhelmed boy. “That’s unoriginal even for you.”

 

Ben shrugs only to swallow thickly as Rey drops her phone and bends to pick it up, skirt riding up illegally high on her hips with the motion. Hazel eyes flick over one shoulder as she snaps back up, and flashes a grin his way. Over the next ten minutes she does it half as many times, grin only growing in size with each slow drop of her shoulders towards the dirty bar floor. It’s almost enough to make Ben wish he had a set to play, or a cig in his mouth, anything to distract him from the coil tightening in his stomach.

 

Finn shows up already drunk and grinning beneath the Stormtrooper helmet he’d bought for the night, and promptly buys everyone present a round (beer for him and Ben, shots of jameo for the girls). Which is all well and good, except for the fact that the trio is already swaying on their feet, cat ears (Rose and Rey) and sailor skirt (Jess) knocked askew as they flounce through the crowd back toward the bar. They’re back by the time Phasma has started to set up beneath the banner ( _Cantina Witch Trials_ scrawled across it in dripping red paint), and it’s with a whiskey sigh that Rey tucks herself into his arms, the tips of her cat ears just brushing his chin.

 

“Ben.” His name is sweeter than any drink on her voice, and he cannot help but snake his arms a little more tightly around her waist.

 

“Hey Sweetheart.” He mumbles, ducking low to speak against her ear as Phasma’s set begins in earnest.

 

“Will you drink some water for me?” And as if some spell had been broken, Rey pushes out of his arms to stand affronted between him and Jess.

 

“ _Absolutely_ not!” She huffs, eyes twinkling even as she grabs her friend’s hand and vanishes into the already whipping pit. Ben Solo inhales slowly through his nose, makes sure that Rose has also joined the duo in the crowd, and turns to find water for the three of them anyways.

 

The next time he implores his girlfriend to drink something other than alcohol she leans in close enough for him to see the inner corner of one fake eyelash lifting, and for one glimmering second looks like she’s about to agree. Ben makes the mistake of preemptively smiling, and even before he’s moved the cool plastic cup halfway into her hands Rey’s whirling away again eyes even glossier than her lips when she blows him a kiss.

 

Ben wakes up the next morning with an arm full of Rey, false eyelashes stuck to his bedside table, and cat ears hung haphazardly off the headstock of his Strat. She’s breathing slowly, makeup smeared at the edges where he’d tried to help her clean it off between bouts of vomiting. It’s November first, nearly a year since Ben had watched her fly out of the warehouse district with fire at her heels and thought he’d lost her. Rey snuffles against his neck in her sleep, curls one hand against his chest in response to some subconscious stimuli, and Ben knows he’ll never love anyone more (even if they won’t fucking drink water).


	8. 680 south

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt: "I should stop making choices for myself I always make bad ones"
> 
> this is set about halfway through chapter eight, probably about a month before ben stomps into the cantina and out two favorite idiots start to sort their shit out.

The day First Order piles into their shabby excuse for a band van to head down to record, Rey sits in her car facing out over the wharf and spitefully smokes an entire pack of reds. It’s the thirteenth of January, and the city is painted entirely in shades of white, blue and silver across the water, an almost ethereal sight when the sun dips low enough to kiss it. If Rey wasn’t so fucking _mad_ she’d probably think it was beautiful, but as it stands the anger in her chest burns even hotter than the cigarette in her fingers when she takes a drag. She knows from social media that they’re leaving today, that approximately half an hour ago Ben had gotten behind the wheel of the shitty black van, hood pulled up and (new) nose ring rotated just enough for Poe’s front facing camera to catch a glint of the captive bead when he glowered over and into the selfie.

 

She fucking hates him.

 

Or at least that’s what she tells herself halfway through the pack when Jess pulls up beside her and rushes from one car to the next, fingers fumbling against the cold door handle. Her friend glances from the half smoked pack atop the center console to Rey’s creased brow and huffs what’s almost a laugh.

 

“So, I see you know Ben left today.” Rey ashes her cigarette entirely more forcefully than was necessary, and only turns the music up a little louder (neither of them mention that the band wailing over her blown out speakers is one of Ben’s favorites). The song picks up into a strident riff as the vocalist shouts, and Jess pulls out a cig of her own before holding out her hand for the lucky lighter.

 

“He asks about you, y’know.” She eventually points out, waiting until the track has ended to drop the statement into fleeting silence. Rey rolls her eyes, takes one final drag, and flicks the butt of her cigarette out the window before turning in her seat to better face Jess.

 

“He should keep my goddamn name out of his mouth.” She punctuates the statement by reaching for the lighter, lips pursed into a frown right up until the second she presses a new cigarette past them.

 

“Yeah.” Jess shoots a sly stare out of the corner of her eye, “whatever you say Rey.” There’s a beat of silence, save for the whirr of Rey’s CD deck as it shifts to the next disc, and Rey inhales to defend herself just as the next song starts.

 

“Well he _should!_ ” Jess just grins, every inch the cat who’d gotten the cream as she takes a drag from her cig and gestures for Rey to continue.

 

“I hate him.” Her proclamation rings entirely false in the close proximity of the car, and they both know it.

 

“Ok.”

 

“ _Yeah_ ok.”

 

Jess takes another slow drag, and Rey anxiously checks her phone (in search of what, she isn’t sure; Ben had stopped trying to contact her after almost a month and a half of silence on her end). The sun begins to set in earnest, dipping low behind the car and painting the city in shades of pink while the two girls finish their heaters in almost silence.

 

“I should stop making choices for myself.” Rey sighs, pressing one temple to the freezing glass in an attempt to focus past the phantom brush of Ben’s lips against her throat. “I always make bad ones.” Jess only nods, and together they watch the sun set as reflected (albeit distorted) in the buildings that glitter at them from across the incoming tide.


	9. gobshite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for a prompt from the lovely darth-ernzo: more *clap* drunk rey *clap* and drunk *clap* Ben. They are always drunk at opposite times, and I want to see them drunk together
> 
> set post featherweight, there's hope, i swear!

“Okay, so you find it and then do _what_?”

“You take a knee.” Rey almost-slurs as she demonstrates, smiling up at her boyfriend and the brightly colored bottle he holds between his right thumb and forefinger.

“And then you chug it.”

Ben’s brow furrows as he looks from her to the peachy alcohol in his hand and back. They’re standing in her teeny tiny kitchen, Ben’s shoulders taking up about 65 percent of the room and an _appalling_ amount of bottles accounting for the other 35 percent. It’s July, heady and warm in the way mid summer can only be, and the humidity permeates Rey’s apartment along with the opening riff of Ben’s favorite pop punk album and their friend’s voices. Her boyfriend considers, eyeing the bottle and still kneeling girlfriend suspiciously before taking a knee and throwing the bottle back.

He’s halfway through and already looking triumphant when Poe bursts into the kitchen, unsteady on his feet and clutching a katana. Rey whirls around to face him fully, brows nearly to her hairline as she takes in the image. The rest of the party isn’t far behind him, spearheaded by Jess looking absolutely devious with an armful of bottles.

“Girls versus Boys.” She grins wickedly in the same second that Ben finishes his drink and slams the bottle down on the floor in front of him.

“Oh.” Rey hardly has time to process Jess’s challenge before his arms are around her waist. “You’re going _down._ ” They divide into teams and split the bottles evenly between them before throwing the boys out of the apartment.

“Alright.” Jess has her hands on her hips and a sea of unopened bottles in front of her, every inch the seasoned general. “Here’s the plan.”

Rose scurries off with an armful of bottles to get the living room, eyes already fixed on the record player. For her part, Jess primarily marshals, executing her plan with flawless efficiency. Grinning like a (drunken) loon, Rey ducks into her bedroom to tuck a bottle beneath Ben’s pillow, hoping against all hope that he doesn’t find it until well after the party has ended. The boys are still audible outside, Poe and Ben bickering about proper katana stance (Rey knows for a fact that Ben hasn’t trained with katana a day in his life) as the girls work.

By the time they’re done, there are bottles hidden in the bathroom, the record library, behind couch cushions, inside the half drunk rack of beer Finn had brought, and a truly appalling amount of the kitchen cabinets. It’s with a shit eating grin that Rey opens her door to trade off with the boys, only to find Ben and Poe toe to toe (katana now inexplicably in Ben’s hands).

“Han taught me not to be ashamed of my dick.” Ben peacocks, driving home his point with an elaborate wave of the sword.

Poe’s eyeing the sword and halfway to tossing an equally ridiculous retort back when they notice the girls eyeing them from the doorway.

“Your turn?” Rey laughs, more question than statement as First Order hurries to gather their bottles. As the other men storm the gates, Ben pauses to slant his lips over Rey’s, mouth tasting of peach liquor and blues when she slips her tongue past his teeth.

“Ready to lose?” His eyes are dark when they pull away, and Rey knows she doesn’t imagine the way they dip low to steal a glance of her cleavage in the dim hall light.

“Not a chance, Solo.” Ben laughs, and pauses just long enough to let her adjust his nose ring so the captive bead doesn’t hang out before exiting with a bump of his hip against hers.

The girls win, but not by a lot, victory secured the second Finn finds the bottle stashed (unsanitarily) in the toilet, and when Ben tugs Rey into the kitchen for the second time that night he smells like stale cologne and spilled peach liquor.

“I love you.” He slurs, as earnest as can be when Rey reaches up to cup his face. 

“I love you too!” They’re in a new city with the people they love most, surrounded by music and light and a whole lot of promise. Ben looks almost like he’s about to cry, eyes suspiciously bright when he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“I can’t imagine being with anyone else.” His arms are around her waist now, one large palm slipping under her shirt to span the small of her back as he kisses her.

“Don’t even want to try.”

Maybe it’s the liquor, or the pleasant heat setting up in her stomach as Ben’s lips migrate sloppily down the line of her throat, but either way Rey can’t help but feel the future is bright.

  


**Author's Note:**

> have something not covered in copacetic that you want to see written? hit my (tumblr) line @ _hyperphonic_.  
>  disclaimer: all i own is one (1) sick ass "casual sex friday" coffee mug


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